


Driver Picks the Music

by Morgan Briarwood (morgan32)



Category: Supernatural, The X-Files
Genre: Case Fic, Community: spn_summergen, Crossover, Curses, Gen, sick!Sam, spn season 2, x-f post-canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-02
Updated: 2011-09-02
Packaged: 2017-10-23 08:38:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/248369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgan32/pseuds/Morgan%20Briarwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1997, the Winchesters were forced to abandon a hunt when Sam became sick. Ten years later, Sam's life might depend on Dean figuring out exactly what happened back then, but all he has to go on are some cryptic hints in Dad's journal. The trail leads the brothers to a former FBI agent, Fox Mulder, but what did an alien-obsessed Fed have to do with their Dad?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Time period: Set during SPN season two after _Nightshifter_ but before _Heart_ ; in the summer before the movie: _X-Files – I Want To Believe_.
> 
> Since music was an integral part of the prompt, I wanted to find something as far removed from SPN’s usual classic rock as possible. My research led me to Japan, and [the beautiful, haunting melodies of traditional Japanese folk music](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3FhFewRCY0) seemed exactly what I was looking for.
> 
> The Tule Lake internment camp in California is real and the history of the internment of Japanese immigrants during WW2 is also real, broadly as I have described it in this story. However, the camp as portrayed in this story and the characters and events I have set there are entirely fictional. And, yes, I admit it: the house in Rodanthe is borrowed from the movie.
> 
> Written for spn_summergen 2011.

**Tule Lake, CA, 2007**

The waning moon rose over the lake, silvering the surface. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky but the night was still warm. Dean balanced the large brown bag on top of the cooler and carried both around to the front of the Impala. It should have been easy, but his injured hand was stiff and painful and he fumbled with the box. He swore as he almost dropped it, but Sam caught his movement and reached out to steady the box. Dean regained his grip, then set the cooler on the car, picked up the bag and took his place on the hood beside his brother.

Tonight they had nothing to hunt and nothing chasing them. There was nowhere in particular they needed to be. Tonight was a rare night for peace and quiet and watching the stars.

Dean took a bottle of beer from the cooler and prised the cap off using his ring. He took a long drink.

Sam hummed a tune quietly as he gazed up at the sky above them. There was a knife in his hand and he turned the blade idly so the silver flashed in the moonlight. He appeared completely absorbed in his own world.

Worried, Dean said sharply. “Yo! Sam! You home?”

Sam’s head jerked up and he stopped humming. “Oh. Hey, Dean. How’s the hand?”

Dean raised his hand and flexed it. “Just bruised. It’ll be fine in a few days.” Are you okay?” He offered Sam a beer.

Sam waved it away. “No thanks. I think I’m getting a headache.”

Dean shrugged. “Probably your singing,” he quipped.

Sam protested. “I wasn’t singing!”

“Wow. Did you hit your head back there or something?” Dean tossed the rejected beer back into the cooler and fished a piece of pie out of the bag. Having claimed his share, he threw the rest to Sam.

Sam caught the bag. “I’m fine.” He pulled a pie from the bag and began to eat.

Dean shrugged. “Okay.” He leaned back on the hood and joined Sam in watching the stars.

 

*

 

Dean was in the middle of brushing his teeth when Sam barged into the bathroom and hopped into the shower. It wasn’t that unusual, though usually Sam waited for Dean to be done. Dean finished up, packed his toothbrush with his shaving gear and headed out. As he left the bathroom, he heard Sam singing.

Singing?

Dean stopped in the doorway. It was the same tune Sam had been humming the night before. Dean didn’t have a clue what it was. It sounded really weird, like maybe Indian or Chinese music, but that could have been just because Sam was a terrible singer.

Dean didn’t know the tune, but there was something about it that made his blood run cold. It triggered a memory: the smell of the ocean, a cold wind and fear. But Dean couldn’t place it.

Shaking his head, Dean gathered up their bags and headed out to the car. Once the bags were stashed, he sat down behind the wheel and rummaged through the box of tapes while he waited for Sam. Let him try singing over Dean’s music! He selected Black Sabbath and turned up the volume.

When Sam finally reached the car, his hair still damp from the shower, Dean was sitting in Sam’s usual place, reading their Dad’s journal. He waited until Sam slid into the driver’s seat. The keys were already in the ignition.

“You mind drivin’?” Dean asked. “I’m, uh, busy.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, Sam, I’m fine. I’m just tryin’ to remember something about an old hunt. It’s been nagging at me. I know Dad wrote it down, but I can’t find it. His notes are all over the place.”

Sam grinned. “Yeah, Dad never got the hang of indexing, did he?” He fired up the engine. “Did you find a new hunt?”

“Not yet,” Dean answered, turning the page. Then he mentally translated Sam’s question: _where are we going?_ “You wanna head to the Roadhouse?” he suggested.

“If you want to, but...” Sam turned Black Sabbath off as he pulled out of the parking lot, “I’d rather find another job.”

“Hey!” Dean reached for the stereo.

Sam smacked his hand away. “Driver picks the music, remember?”

Dean scowled, but he couldn’t argue with his own rule. “Fine. But if you pick that foreign crap, dude, I swear to God you’ll never drive my car again.”

“What foreign crap?” Sam asked as he turned on the radio.

Dean shrugged without answering and turned his attention back to the journal. He knew it must be in here somewhere. Dad wrote everything down. But his journal wasn’t exactly organised. Dean had read it cover-to-cover, several times over, but he still couldn’t find anything when he really needed it. He tuned out the music Sam had chosen on the radio and concentrated on reading while Sam did the driving.

Finally, Dean found something. A North Carolina address, in Dad’s handwriting, was followed by five names, each of them crossed out. There were rough sketches of several things that looked like ornaments: a vase, a box, a bowl of some kind, and what looked like a woman’s head with a couple of lines coming out of it. Dean had no clue what _that_ was. Beneath them was a drawing of some kind of flute. Under the sketches Dad had written a date, and a note scrawled so badly Dean could barely make it out. The date seemed right, and North Carolina was right, too. Dean marked the page with a paperclip and put the journal away.

His stomach growled and he remembered they had skipped breakfast. “Let’s find a place to stop,” Dean suggested. “I’m starving!”

“We passed a diner a couple of miles back,” Sam said. “You want to head back there?”

Dean looked up, paying attention to the road they were on. All he saw ahead was lonely, two-lane blacktop. It might be hours before they found another place to stop. “Yeah, let’s go back,” he decided.

Sam nodded agreement and slowed the car. He checked the rearview and began to turn the car around. Dean wasn’t really paying attention; he knew Sam could handle the Impala. But though the highway was wide enough that even the Impala should have been able to turn fairly easily, Sam ran her rear wheels up onto the verge.

“Hey!” Dean yelped. He stared at Sam indignantly.

Sam braked hard and raised a hand to his eyes. “Crap!” he muttered.

“Sammy?” Dean was immediately concerned.

“Sam rubbed at his eyes. “God, Dean, I’m sorry. My eyes...”

“Move over. I’ll drive.” Dean got out of the car and walked around as Sam obediently slid across the seat. Dean started the car again and finished the turn. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

“I don’t know. Everything blurred for a moment there. I’m okay now.”

Dean doubted it, but he didn’t argue. He started the Black Sabbath tape again and started looking for that diner.

 

*

 

Over a stack of pancakes and a great deal of coffee, Dean showed Sam the page he’d marked in Dad’s journal. “I can’t make out that last part,” he admitted.

Sam studied it closely. “Ninety-seven,” he said thoughtfully. I don’t remember Dad hunting in Carolina.” He frowned at the page. “Dad’s writing is awful,” he complained, then, “F.M.L. That must be someone’s initials. The next part could be anything, but this says ‘should be over’. Is F.M.L. the spirit he salted and burned?”

Dean frowned, confused. “You don’t remember that hunt? The house on the sand dunes?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Dad thought it was a haunted house. Everyone who lived there went nuts or died.” Dean pointed to the crossed out names. “These were the original owners. Dad thought one of them was the spirit. I’m not sure if he crossed ’em out as he burned them or if he decided none of them was the suspect. But we never finished that hunt because you got sick.”

Sam blinked. “I got sick? I don’t remember.”

“You and Dad had a fight and you ran off and collapsed on the dunes. By the time I found you, you were burning up. It was bad enough that Dad left the hunt to get you help. We nearly lost you, Sam. How can you not remember?”

“I don’t know. Maybe _because_ I was so sick?”

“Like you blocked it out or something? I don’t know, man. It doesn’t sound like you.”

“Why are you bringing this up anyway? I mean, this was ten years ago.”

Dean hesitated. “Yesterday, and this morning, you were singing. It’s the same tune you had stuck in your head back when you were so sick.”

 

*

 

 **Rodanthe, NC, 1997**

Dean found his little brother unconscious on the sand dunes.

He was half-hidden in the long grass, lying on his side. Dean knelt beside him and shook his shoulder. “Sammy! Sam! Come on!”

Sammy didn’t respond and his skin was hot under Dean’s hand. Dean thought at first it was heatstroke, but the day wasn’t that hot. He touched Sammy’s cheek. He felt rough sand against his palm; the sand clung to Sam’s face. He also felt the dampness of sweat and the boiling heat of Sam’s skin. The kid was burning up.

“Sammy!” Dean tried again, shaking him harder.

Sam shifted slightly, and mumbled something that sounded almost like singing. An instant later, Dean realised it was. Sam had been humming the same damn tune all week. It was driving Dean crazy, but right now he was glad for the evidence that Sam was still in there.

At fourteen, Sam was no longer a lightweight, but Dean was strong. He managed to hoist his brother onto his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and started back along the beach. Sam groaned as Dean walked.

“I know, Sammy,” Dean tried to comfort him, “but it ain’t far.”

The house the Winchesters were investigating was abandoned and damaged by the recent coastal storms, but from a distance it appeared intact. Only the broken staircase and crooked shutters gave away its fate. The Impala stood on the far side of the house, protected from the worst of the weather. By the time Dean reached it, his shoulder and back ached like a bitch and he was as sweat-drenched as Sammy. He got the rear door open and managed to lay Sammy down on the back seat. Then, finally, he sank to the ground, wiped his face with his sleeve, and waited for his heart to slow down.

Inside the car, Sammy started humming again. Now wasn’t the time to get mad at Sammy’s crappy taste in music, but man, that was irritating!

Dean dragged himself back to his feet. He checked Sam’s forehead: he was still burning up. “Okay, Sammy. Stay put. I’m gonna get Dad.”

“Dad doesn’t care,” Sam mumbled. Then he went back to humming that irritating tune.

Dean pretended he hadn’t heard. He took his jacket and tucked it under Sam’s head as a pillow. He closed the car door and took off as fast as he could run, yelling for Dad.

 

*

 

Sam covered his ears with his hands, moaning as he thrashed on the bed. “Make it stop, Dean! Please make it stop!”

Dean, kneeling beside the bed, looked up at John helplessly. “We’ve got to do something, Dad.” He dipped the cloth into a bowl of iced water, wrung it out and stroked Sam’s face with the cool cloth. “Make what stop, Sammy?” he asked gently, but it was obvious Sam couldn’t hear him. When Sam didn’t respond. Dean climbed up on the bed and held his younger brother, stroking his sweat-damp hair the way he used to when Sammy was little and suffered from nightmares. He looked up at their father, silently pleading.

John nodded grimly. “I thought his fever would break overnight, but you’re right. Sam needs help.” He offered the car keys to Dean. “Don’t go to the clinic. There’s a hospital in Williamston on the mainland. Take him there. The afternoon ferry leaves in 74 minutes.”

Dean accepted the keys. “What about you?”

“I can’t abandon this hunt without at least making sure no one lives in this house again. I’ll join you at the hospital as soon as I can.” John bent over the bed and lifted Sam up into his arms.

Dean scrambled up and hurriedly packed their things while John carried Sam out to the car. By the time Dean ran down the steps with his bag and Sam’s in his hands, John had extracted everything he thought he needed from the Impala’s trunk. Sam lay on the back seat, a blanket tucked around him.

John had more instructions for Dean, and reminded him not to give their real names at the hospital. He gave Dean a credit card. “If no one asks you for insurance, don’t bring it up. But if you need money, use this. I’ll be there in two days at the most.”

“Yes, sir,” Dean agreed, pocketing the card. He looked worriedly at the gasoline cans around Dad’s feet, but he was more worried about Sammy. Dad knew what he was doing.

John reached through the car window to ruffle Sam’s hair. “Hold on, son. Dean will get you help.” To Dean he added, “Don’t drive too fast – you don’t want to get pulled over. Take care of Sammy. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

The road to town was wet, but not flooded. At high tide the sea covered the road, cutting the house on the dunes off from town. Dean was forced to drive slowly as the waves broke beneath his tyres. And then he had to wait for the ferry to the mainland. Once back on solid land, he put on as much speed as he dared, wishing he had ignored Dad’s orders and gone to the clinic as Sammy, behind him, kept begging him to make it stop.

At the hospital, the doctors took over quickly. Dean did his best to stay close but he was made to leave while the doctors worked on Sam. He filled out forms, remembering to check Sam in under their current alias to match the credit card Dad gave him. Then all he could do was wait.

 

*

 

Sam had a tube in his arm pumping some kind of clear liquid into his veins. They must have given him some kind of sedative because he had stopped thrashing. Sam’s eyes were closed in sleep, but Dean didn’t think it was a healthy sleep.

“What’s wrong with him?” Dean asked.

The doctor, a middle-aged man, answered gently. “Mostly likely it’s flu, but we aren’t sure yet. We need to wait for the test results. For now, we’re just treating the symptoms.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, he was very dehydrated, so we’re fixing that with the drip. We’ve given him something to bring the fever down, and we took some blood to find out what’s causing the fever. You see, if we try to treat him before we know for sure, we might make it worse.”

Dean nodded, appreciating the plain explanation.

“Does your brother have problems with his hearing?” the doctor asked.

“No. Well, he has lousy taste in music, but that’s all. Why?”

The doctor smiled a little. “He said he could hear music.”

Dean frowned. “Yeah, he’s been saying that for a few days. Is that something to do with his sickness?”

“It’s an unusual symptom, but it could be related.” The doctor glanced at Sammy, then back to Dean. “You can stay with him if you like. I’ll let you know when the test results are back.”

“Thanks, Doc.” Dean sat down by the bed.

 

*

 

It was dark when John reached the hospital. A quiet conversation with a nurse gained him access to Sammy’s room. He peered through the open doorway.

John saw Sammy first, pale in the moonlight coming through the window. He looked like he’d lost weight and John cursed himself for failing to notice sooner how ill Sammy was. The boy was growing so fast it was hard to keep track, but this gauntness was more than a growth-spurt. Sam had been sick for a while and John hadn’t seen it. Now he was lying in a hospital bed with a tube in his arm.

On the far side of the bed, Dean was slumped in a chair, sound asleep. He was wearing his leather coat as a blanket. John thought it likely he hadn’t left Sam’s side since they arrived here. John was filled with pride for the boy. He did his job: he got Sammy the help he needed.

As John watched, Dean stirred and opened his eyes. He saw John in the doorway and started up, going for a weapon.

John spoke quietly. “It’s okay, son.”

Dean relaxed, but stood up and crossed the room. “Dad.”

“Let’s talk outside,” John suggested, not wanting to disturb Sammy. He led Dean to the waiting area nearby and went to a vending machine for coffee. “How’s Sammy?” he asked.

“They say he’s stable, but they don’t know what’s wrong yet. It ain’t the flu.”

“Dean, I didn’t ask what the doctors say. How do you think he is?”

“I don’t know, Dad. His fever broke and he managed to eat something. But I’m still worried. And so are they or they wouldn’t be feeding him the sleepy juice.”

“Makes sense. But he’s better? I mean, a little?”

“Yeah, some. We were right to bring him here. Dad, did you take care of the house?”

John nodded. “Burned it to the ground. It’s not as final as locating the spirit, but at least I know no one will live there again.”

“What if they rebuild it?”

“Out on the dunes, it’s probably not worth the trouble. The next big storm will turn what’s left into driftwood and splinters.”

“Is the spirit what hurt Sammy?”

John was surprised Dean made that connection. He answered cautiously. “I don’t think the spirit caused Sam’s illness. It could be making it worse. That’s why I wanted you here, off the island.”

Dean considered that and nodded. “Can I go back to Sammy now?”

“Yes, if you want to. I’ll wait here until the doctor comes around.”

John watched Dean walk away, observing the stiffness of his shoulders and knew the boy blamed him for Sam’s illness. Something was going on with those boys. He remembered Sam back at the house, begging Dean to make it stop...whatever “it” was. There was a time when Sammy would have directed that plea to his father. Now it was Dean he turned to when he was scared or in pain. That was a good thing, John told himself. John wanted them to be close, for their own sakes. But it hurt to know he was losing one, maybe both, of his boys.

 

*

 

 **Wyoming, 2007**

“Haven’t heard that name in a while,” Ellen said.

Dean let out the breath he had been holding. “You know who it is?” He could hear glasses clinking in the background.

Ellen muttered a curse, evidently trying to balance something as well as the phone. “M.F. Luder is an alias for Fox Mulder. He used to be an FBI agent.”

Dean’s heart sank. No help there, then. “Why did Dad have a Fed’s name in his journal?”

“Well, Mulder wasn’t your typical G-man. He was obsessed with the paranormal. Aliens and U.F.O.s in particular, but he did a little monster hunting on the side.”

“Aliens. So he’s crazy.”

“Probably.”

“You said he was a Fed. Is he dead?”

“I don’t know for sure. The Feds kicked him out on some trumped up charges. He disappeared after that. He’s in hiding, most likely, but he could be dead.”

Dean thought it over for a full second, but he didn’t really have a choice. “Ellen, I need to track down how he knows Dad. It could be important.”

Ellen was silent for a while. “He had a partner at the FBI who quit a couple of years after he did. Doctor Dana Scully. I’ll see if I can track her down.”

“Okay. Thanks, Ellen.”

Dean pocketed his phone and headed back to the motel room. He hesitated outside the door, wanting to be sure he wouldn’t show how worried he was becoming. Then he took a deep breath, pushed the door open and stepped over the salt line.

“Hey, Sam. I saw – ” Dean broke off abruptly. “What’s wrong?”

Sam lay in bed, though it was barely nine o’clock. He had one arm covering his eyes. “I feel like crap,” Sam confessed with a groan. “I guess I’ve got flu or something.”

Dean leaned over the bed and lifted Sam’s arm away from his face. He laid the back of his hand on Sam’s forehead. The skin felt burning hot. “Geez, Sam. Did you take anything?”

“No.”

“Well, you’re gonna.” Dean rummaged through his bag for the Tylenol and made sure Sam swallowed two of them. He left the rest beside the bed.

This was a coincidence. It had to be. They hadn’t been anywhere near North Carolina, so how was it possible for that spirit to have gotten its claws into Sam again?

Dean left to get a bucketful of ice. He covered the ice with water and left a cloth in there to soak. By the time he was done, Sam was asleep. Dean watched him, worried. Maybe Sam was right. Maybe it was just the flu. But flu could be dangerous. Dean pulled out the laptop and spent an hour with [bustyasianbeauties.com](http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/fun/err404.htm). Then he tried to get some sleep.

When Dean woke, Sam wasn’t in bed. He was working on the laptop, which was normal behaviour for Sam, but he looked _terrible_. His hair was damp with sweat and hanging over his face in rat-tails. His face was flushed. He was propping his forehead up on one hand, his eyes half-closed as if he could barely stay awake.

“Sam, what the hell?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Sam explained. His voice sounded as dull as his eyes. “Decided to do some research.” Sam closed the laptop and ran a hand through his hair.

“You’re sick, Sam!” Dean protested. He looked for the ice bucket, but of course the ice had melted while he slept. He pulled the cloth out anyway, wrung it out over the bucket and threw it to Sam.

Sam tried to catch it and failed, which made Dean worry even more. Sam retrieved the wet cloth from the floor and used it to wipe his face. He mumbled a thank-you and laid the cloth over his knee. “I, uh, I looked up that guy. M.F. Luder.” The tone of his voice suggested he hadn’t found good news.

“Yeah?” Dean prompted.

“The guy is a nut, Dean. No way is he a hunter.”

Uh-oh. “What did you find?”

Sam shrugged. “A bunch of articles he published, mostly on U.F.O. watcher websites. According to him, aliens are abducting humans to infect them with alien D.N.A.” Sam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, they’re building a slave-race of alien/human hybrids. Oh, and there’s an international conspiracy of government officials helping them by covering up the evidence.”

Dean nodded. “You’re right, that’s crazy.” It was disappointing. But if the guy was nuts, why was his name in Dad’s journal? “Sam, that doesn’t make sense. Dad obviously trusted the guy, and I talked to Ellen; she kinda vouched for him, too.”

“So, what? The U.F.O. stuff is a cover?”

“I don’t know, maybe. Wait.” Dean remembered Ellen’s information, then. “M.F. Luder is an alias. His real name is Fox Mulder.”

Sam smirked. “His parents must have really hated him. Who the hell calls a kid Fox?” He opened the laptop again. “Do you know anything else about him?”

“He used to be a Fed. F.B.I.”

“Okay. I’ll try the F.B.I. database.” Sam started to type. “Let’s see what...woah!”

“What?”

“Fox Mulder’s file is sealed.”

“Can you unseal it?”

Sam gave him a weary look. “Crack military-grade encryption on my laptop? Sure; I’ll get right on that.”

Dean knew he was being sarcastic, but Sam seemed more alert than a few moments earlier, so he answered deadpan. “Think you can be done by breakfast?”

“Dude, I’d need a supercomputer and even we had one, I couldn’t do it fast enough. We’d have agents breaking down the door in no time.” Sam wiped his face again and sighed heavily. “Maybe we could, uh...”

Dean walked over and gently closed the laptop. “Sam, it’s not important.”

Sam looked up at him miserably. “It might be.”

“What do you mean?”

In answer, Sam hummed that weird, haunting tune. “I couldn’t sleep,” he confessed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Virginia, 2007**

Doctor Dana Scully looked into her rearview mirror once more. The black car was a long way behind, but it was still following. She hadn’t been certain before; they might have simply been on the same road. But she had chosen to make her home in an isolated place for a reason and no one came out here unless her home was their destination. She was sure now: the car was following her.

In her previous life as an FBI agent, she wouldn’t have gone home knowing she was being followed, and she would have been armed. Now she was caught between the two: the nearest gun was in her house, but she couldn’t go inside until she knew who was in that car.

She turned her car toward the driveway but instead of going inside she used the car to block the gate. Then she waited.

Sure enough, the car behind came to a stop behind hers. As Scully watched in her rearview mirror, a man climbed out of the car. She assessed him quickly. He appeared to be in his early 30’s, a tall and handsome man who moved with a confident step. He wore old blue jeans and a dark blue jacket. He certainly didn’t look like an agent. Scully rolled her window down.

The stranger offered smile that was probably meant to be reassuring. “Doctor Scully?”

“Yes,” she answered warily.

He glanced back toward the car. “Uh...my name is Dean Winchester. I think you might have known my dad. John Winchester.”

Scully frowned. “I’m sorry. I don’t think so.”

He looked disappointed, but rallied quickly. “Right. Well, he knew your old partner, Mulder.”

She stiffened at the sound of Mulder’s name. Though no one had come looking for him in some years, Mulder was still technically a fugitive. Even if this man was not working for them, it was still reckless to discuss Mulder with anyone.

Unfortunately, Winchester noticed her sudden tension. “I was hoping you’d know where I can find him. It’s really important.”

Fear made her speak more rudely than she otherwise might have. “If your father knows Mulder, ask him.”

Immediately, Winchester’s smile faded. His eyes slid away from hers and he bowed his head. “I wish I could.”

Scully knew grief when she saw it. It was something she saw all too often in her work at the hospital. “I’m sorry,” she said at once, and she meant it.

He made an impatient gesture. “Lady, I don’t have a lot of time. My brother is gonna die if I don’t find Fox Mulder, and he’s all the family I’ve got left. Please. Help me.”

“What’s happened to your brother?” she asked, because it seemed like the safest ground. This sounded like something to do with an X-File and she was not eager to go down that road again. She racked her brain for a memory of the name he’d mentioned but it meant nothing to her. Who was John Winchester?

Winchester glanced back toward the car again. “It’s kinda hard to explain. He’s sick.”

Scully reached for the bag at her side and opened the car door. “I’m a doctor. Is your brother in the car?”

“Yes, but – ”

She ignored the rest and headed for the car. She found the brother in the rear seat and it was immediately evident to her that he was very ill. The young man was fully dressed and clutching a blanket around his shoulders, but still he was shivering. His head was lolling back, his eyes half-closed. Scully opened the car door and reached inside. She pressed her fingertips against his neck. His skin was hot and slick with sweat, his pulse strong, but too fast. He coughed weakly.

“What’s your brother’s name?” she asked as the other man reached her side.

“Sam.”

“Sam. Can you hear me?”

Sam mumbled something and turned his head to the side.

“He can’t hear you,” Dean told her.

“Deaf?” Scully knew some sign language, but Sam was clearly in no position to see her signing.

“No,” Dean answered, then corrected herself. “Uh, yes. Not usually.”

Scully didn’t quite understand, but she assumed he meant Sam’s sickness had made him temporarily deaf. “You have to take him to a hospital,” she told him. “He needs fluids, antivirals...”

“We can’t,” Dean snapped, then added in a softer tone, “No insurance. No money.”

There were free clinics they could have tried, but Scully didn’t press the point. She recognised that Sam needed immediate help, and she could at least get him stable. If need be, she could call an ambulance from the house.

“Can you carry him?” she asked Dean. “I’ll treat him inside.”

Dean shook his head. “Thanks, doc, but I need to find Fox Mulder.”

“We can discuss that after I save his life.” Scully closed the car door again and headed back to her own car. “Follow me,” she commanded.

Dean gave a shrug, but answered in a more respectful tone. “Yes, ma’am.”

 

*

 

Once inside, Scully directed Dean to the living room, where there was a couch she thought would be long enough for Sam to lie down. She had underestimated Sam’s height, however. Still, the couch was adequate, and she found several extra pillows to pack around him and a comforter to keep him warm.

She pulled a stool close to the couch and opened her bag. “The kitchen is on the second right. Get me a bowl of water – tepid not hot – and some clean cloths.” When Dean didn’t move at once she snapped, “Now!”

He fled.

Left alone with Sam, Scully worked with the efficiency of long practice. She first made sure he was comfortable, then folded the comforter down and unbuttoned his shirt. She noted in passing several long-healed scars. Using the stethoscope from her bag, she checked his heartbeat and listened to his breathing. His lungs sounded congested and she feared early pneumonia. She continued her examination, checked his throat and eyes then looked for a rash or other symptoms that might help her reach a diagnosis. When Dean returned with the requested water, Scully laid a damp, folded cloth on Sam’s forehead and used another to wipe the sweat from his face and neck.

“Has he been vomiting at all?” she asked. “Or complaining of nausea or stomach ache?”

“No.”

“What about diarrhoea?”

“Not that I’ve noticed.”

“Headaches?”

“Yes. But Sam gets that a lot. He’s, uh, he’s a psychic and when he gets his visions, they give him headaches.”

Scully nodded, adding that piece of information to the list, pleased that she could eliminate the worst of the possibilities based on Dean’s answers. “Tell me why you think finding Mulder will help your brother,” she instructed.

Dean sat down on the nearest chair. “That’s...complicated.” He took a battered, leather-bound journal from inside his coat. “This is my dad’s journal. I found Mulder’s name in here in connection with a...with something that happened in 1997.”

She noticed his stumble and wondered what he had meant to say. “Was your father involved with an X-File?”

Dean frowned. “What’s an X-File?”

“It’s the designation the F.B.I. uses for investigations involving unexplained phenomena.”

“That’s a fancy word for what? Ghosts and curses?”

Scully smiled; she was so used to people reacting with contempt or scepticism to her old job. “Ghosts, alien abductions, mutant creatures that feed on human liver, supernatural serial killers, possession, reincarnation, telekinesis...and suchlike.”

Dean nodded as if all that was commonplace. “Well, if my dad was interested in it, there was something supernatural involved. So, yeah. An X-File, I guess.”

1997 was after she and Mulder became partners. Scully didn’t think Mulder had worked many cases without her. She had no way to check, though. Most of the records of the X-Files were destroyed in a fire and what survived was now buried: she had no access to the files any longer.

“Go on,” Scully prompted.

“We were in Rodanthe, on the North Carolina coast, looking for something that had killed people. Dad thought it was a spirit. A ghost. But we, I mean my dad, was still trying to figure out who it was when Sammy got sick. We had to leave and I think this Mulder guy took over the hunt. Now it’s happening to Sam again. I need help to find what we missed.”

Scully wasn’t sure what to make of this. “You believe your brother’s illness is supernatural?” she checked. That was a new one, even for her. Certainly she remembered X-Files in which paranormal phenomena had affected individuals’ health. Her own cancer was one of them. But it seemed a strange assumption to make about an illness that gave every appearance of being simple flu.

“I’m sure of it,” Dean confirmed, but offered nothing further.

Scully reached for her prescription pad and wrote on it. She tore off the page and offered it to Dean. “You should be able to fill this at the pharmacy in town.”

“What is it?”

She was accustomed to the question, even though the answer should have been obvious. “It’s medication for Sam. Something to bring his fever down and help him fight the infection.” She was most worried about the incipient pneumonia, and would have preferred to treat him in a hospital, but this was a good beginning. She could see Dean’s reluctance to leave. “You can trust me, Dean. He’ll be safe here. Do you need money?”

“Uh, no. I’ve got it covered. Just...take care of him.”

“I will,” she promised.

Dean watched Sam for a moment. It was as if he couldn’t tear himself away. Scully had seen that at the hospital where she now worked; parents of young children were often reluctant to leave, but Sam was far from being a child. Dean was a strange, intense young man. But then he nodded curtly and left without another word.

As soon as Scully heard his car leave her driveway, she stood and turned toward the door. She wasn’t surprised to see Mulder standing there already. She smiled a greeting. “Mulder.”

“Who’s your patient?” He came forward and kissed her forehead.

Mulder had changed a great deal since their years in the F.B.I. His old obsessions were still there, but these days he was content to hide away in the room he called his study, tracking the signs, but rarely investigating in person. His clothing tended toward jeans and sweaters instead of smart grey suits. He sported a heavy beard: he grew the beard as a means to change his appearance when they escaped the F.B.I and their bogus charges against him. The disguise was no longer necessary, but they were both used to it now.

“His name is Sam Winchester,” Scully reported. “Apparently you knew his father. John.”

“John,” Mulder repeated thoughtfully. “John... _Winchester!_ ” Mulder repeated. A sudden, rare smile cracked his face. “I do know him. I never figured out whether I should arrest him or give him a medal.”

“Who was he?”

Mulder frowned. “Was?”

She nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

“John was...a specialist. We ran into each other a few times on different cases. We had some things in common. John lost his wife in very strange circumstances.”

“She was abducted?” Scully assumed.

“No, she was killed. But not by anything human. Why are his sons here?”

“I’m not sure. Dean thinks you can help him.” Scully repeated the little Dean had told her.

Mulder nodded. “If the sons are anything like the father, they’ll never talk to the F.B.I. It’s safe to tell them I’m here.” Mulder looked past her to the sick man. Scully turned, too.

Sam was moaning again, apparently delirious. It sounded like music.

 

*

 

 **Rodanthe, NC, 1997**

The landward wind lifted the sand in great billows over the road and Mulder’s car. It was almost like driving through a sandstorm; visibility was poor enough that he began to wonder if this side trip was such a good idea, but not poor enough for him to turn back. He hoped to get a look at the house that was acquiring such a sinister reputation, to see if there was any evidence of...anything. The house was currently unoccupied, the legal incapacity of the current owner holding up its sale to the next.

He rounded the dunes and there it was: a house built on sturdy wooden stilts atop the shifting sand, the blue-painted shutters closed. But it was not empty. Mulder saw a boy, a teenager, standing on the mezzanine and leaning on the rail. The window behind him was unshuttered. Slowing his car, Mulder observed the house for a few moments. There was a dark-coloured car parked in the shadows beneath the house and the front door stood open. An older man emerged from the front door and called up to the boy who responded with alacrity.

So much for Mulder’s plan to explore the abandoned property. Most likely, these were relatives of the owner using the house for a vacation. He considered talking to them, but decided to return later. He wanted to hear the gossip around town first. Mulder turned the car around. In his rearview mirror, as he headed back toward the causeway, he saw the older man watching him from the shadows of the house.

The house in Rodanthe had a long history, but in the past twenty years it had changed hands eight times. Every family that lived there experienced tragedy: murder, suicide or insanity. There had to be something here that was causing it. The locality provided a number of possible theories: Rodanthe was just a short distance from Roanoke, from where the famous lost colony vanished in 1587. The barrier islands were once notorious for their shipwrecks, the long sandbanks were an easy place for ships to run aground in poor weather. Maybe there had been something here for a long, long time.

The ferry to the mainland took only two trips a day, so Mulder had several hours free to ask questions around town. He started at the general store, where the shop assistant, Abbie, was all too happy to gossip all day about the house on the dunes and its bloody history. Mulder was working on a way to extricate himself from the conversation when someone he recognised walked into the store. The bell above the door jingled, announcing the new arrival and Mulder glanced that way, hoping the customer would distract Abbie long enough for Mulder to make his escape. But the man wasn't looking at Abbie. He met Mulder's eyes and nodded a greeting.

“Long time, G-man.”

Mulder felt a tension he hadn’t known he was carrying dissipate. “Winchester.”

“Thought I recognised you out at the house.”

Mulder hadn't recognised him, but he didn’t say so. “I was in the area,” he said carefully.

Winchester took a local newspaper from the stand and paid for it. “Let’s catch up over a beer,” he suggested, though it was early to be drinking. His eyes flicked to the loquacious Abbie as he spoke and Mulder understood that “beer” was code for “in private”.

Mulder agreed quickly. They sat in Winchester’s car, overlooking the ocean, while they talked.

“You’re living in that house? Isn’t that dangerous?”

Winchester shook his head. “We won’t be there long. What do you know about this?”

It was typical of Winchester to demand information without offering any, but Mulder answered, summarising the information he’d gathered. He did not, however, offer a theory of his own. He knew better than to share his speculations with Winchester. “Do you know what’s out there?”

“I’m working on that,” Winchester answered cagily, then added, “I think it’s a spirit. Every time a new family moves in, one of them is singled out by this thing. They go crazy and if no one stops them in time they either kill someone else in the family or themselves. What I haven't figured out yet is how it happens. It could be ghost possession but I can’t get to the survivors to confirm that.”

This was why Mulder enjoyed Winchester’s company. The man was a petty criminal; he had no doubt of that. But who else in Mulder’s life could speak so seriously of ghosts and possession? For Mulder, so accustomed to derision for his willingness to consider extreme possibilities, being in Winchester’s company was relaxing.

“I might be able to get access,” Mulder suggested. His F.B.I. credentials did open a lot of doors.

“Doesn't matter. What I need to do is identify the spirit that’s causing the insanity. Then I’ll stop it.”

Mulder got the message: his presence wasn’t wanted or needed. He was okay with that. His interest here was in taking care of the problem and it seemed Winchester had it covered. So he simply offered his card. “I’m out of here on the afternoon ferry. If you need any help...”

Winchester accepted the card and looked at it. “I won’t. But thanks.”

Mulder spent the next few hours killing time and sampling the local barbecue before he drove down to the ferry port. While he was watching the cars rolling off the ancient-looking boat, one of the locals approached him. “Agent Mulder?”

Mulder hadn't introduced himself as F.B.I. while in town, but he agreed that he was.

“There’s a call for you.” The man nodded toward the ticket booth.

Mulder locked his car and headed over there. He took out his badge for the first time since he got into town. “I’m Agent Mulder. I was told – ”

The man picked up the telephone receiver and handed it to him. “Just hit the button.”

Mulder put the receiver to his ear and pushed the button. “Agent Mulder.”

“G-man, I’m gonna eat my words. I need help.”

 

*

 

 **Virginia, 2007**

Before Dean Winchester returned to the house with his brother’s medicine, Mulder had time to discover a great deal about John Winchester’s sons. He remembered the father well: a very driven man he first met shortly before he was partnered with Scully. They were never friends, nor even contacts, but they had a way of running into each other every so often, working similar cases. Before Winchester, Mulder had no idea that hunters even existed.

The case in Rodanthe, NC was never officially an X-File. Mulder found the reports of people dying or going insane in an isolated beach house and when he happened to be in the neighbourhood he went to check it out, thinking it might be worth opening a file. But Winchester got there ahead of him and Mulder found nothing he could use to claim federal jurisdiction on the case. All the deaths were confined to one small island. It wasn’t federal land and no one involved was a government official.

Mulder knew little of John Winchester’s sons. He’d known they existed, and felt sorry for them: Winchester never struck him as father-of-the-year material. But after a short time on the computer Mulder found he knew a great deal about the boys.

Dean Winchester had several outstanding warrants against his name. The most worrying was for a series of murders in St Louis. There were also a couple of murders in Baltimore – one of the victims was a local cop. Sam was questioned in relation to the death of his girlfriend in Palo Alto, but that death had eventually been ruled accidental, absolving the young man. Most recently, both brothers were implicated in a bank robbery in Milwaukee during which several hostages were killed. How many of the charges were true? Mulder wondered. He knew from personal experience how easy it was to get framed if you asked the wrong questions of the wrong people. Starting with the St Louis serial murders, Mulder began to dig deeper.

He heard Dean’s return, but didn’t let that interrupt his research. A few minutes later, the door to Mulder’s workroom opened. Mulder smiled to himself. Scully always knocked. So he knew without looking that this was Dean. He kept his eyes on the computer screen, waiting for the man to speak first.

The walls of the workroom were covered with Mulder’s research into paranormal activity, spanning several years. U.F.O. Sightings. Abduction hot-spots. A series of murders in San Francisco, each occurring on or near the full moon. Disappearances in Connecticut. And much, much more.

“Are you a hunter?” Dean Winchester finally asked.

Mulder turned to face him, the swivel-chair turning beneath him. “Not any more. It was never more than a sideline for me.”

Dean took a step toward him, his eyes now on the computer screen. “That ain’t what you think,” he said defensively. His body was tense.

Mulder knew than that the man was armed. “Four women tortured to death. One suspect was in two places at once. A dead man with your face was fingered for the last one. Unless you make a habit of coming back from the dead, I’m thinking shape-shifter.”

Dean relaxed a little. “Okay, then it _is_ what you think.” He offered a brief smile. “I need your help.”

Mulder gestured to a chair. “You think I know something that will help your brother. Ask away, but I’m not sure I know anything useful.”

“I need to know about the house in Rodanthe. I think you were there in ’97.”

“I was, but just to clean up. Why do you think the house is connected to your brother’s illness?”

Dean sighed heavily and rubbed one hand over his face. “It’s the music. Sounds crazy, I know, but if you’re a hunter you know: crazy is where we live.”

“Music?” Mulder leaned forward, intrigued. “Tell me more.”

 

*

 

Scully served the two men supper in Mulder’s workroom. Mulder wouldn’t have eaten anything if she didn’t. When she carried the tray into the workroom both men were deep in conversation, but Dean’s eyes lit up when he saw the food.

“How’s Sam?”

“No change,” Scully reported, and saw some of the light go out in his eyes. “I’ll let you know as soon as there’s something to tell,” she promised.

“Thanks, doc.”

She smiled and turned to go, but Mulder called her back.

“Scully!”

Even after all this time, he called her Dana only in their most private moments. She turned back.

“Dean, give me that tune again,” Mulder said.

Dean frowned, but he hummed a short phrase of music. “Something like that, anyway.”

“Do you recognise it, Scully?”

“Once more?” she asked Dean, and he repeated the tune, looking embarrassed.

Scully didn’t recognise the tune, but there was something familiar about it. “It sounds Asian. Chinese, perhaps, or Japanese.”

Mulder spun around on his chair and did something on the computer. “Japanese! Of course.”

Dean moved up to his side. “Japan? That means something?”

Scully left the room quietly, knowing he would forget she was there once he got into the research. In this respect, if no other, they weren’t partners any more. She went to check on her patient first and found Sam awake. He jerked up when he saw her, trying to throw the comforter off hisbody.

She sat beside him. “Relax, Sam. You’re safe. My name is Dana. I’m a doctor.”

“Where’s Dean?” Sam sounded groggy and confused, but there was an urgency in the question.

“He’s close. I’ll tell him you’re awake. Just let me look at you first.” She examined him quickly. The fever was down, but still higher than it should be. His heart rate was back to normal. “You seem better,” she said with a professional smile.

“I’m not,” Sam told her.

“I’ll get Dean.”

Scully knocked lightly on the workroom door and peered in. “Sam’s conscious,” she reported. “He’s asking for you, Dean.”

Dean ran past her without a word.

To Mulder, she said, “Are you buying this?”

He gave her a look she knew very well. “What do you think, _doctor_ Scully?”

That was the trouble. She didn’t know what to think. All she could do was give the scientific answer. “Without labs I can’t be sure, but Sam has most of the classic symptoms of influenza. I gave him standard antivirals and he’s responding.”

Mulder nodded, accepting her diagnosis. “Flu doesn’t explain the _ohrwurm_. The music.”

“True.” She could offer no other comment.

“Did we ever talk about hunters?” Mulder nodded toward the door.

Scully closed it and sat down. “No.”

Mulder had the grace to look embarrassed. “Let’s just say I was never the only one open to extreme possibilities. Hunters mostly work outside the law. I always tried to stay legal.”

“And these men are hunters? Mulder, I couldn’t sit by and let Sam die, but should we be sheltering them?”

“Definitely not.” Mulder reached down and detached a memory stick from the computer, turned the screen off and stood up. “But I can’t turn them away, either.”


	3. Chapter 3

Sam felt horrible.

His head was pounding like he had a whole herd of horses in there. His neck ached...come to think of it, all his joints did. He had pillows piled at his back or he couldn’t have sat up straight. He clutched the bowl of soup Doctor Scully had given him, afraid it would fall from his hands at any moment. The soup smelled good, but Sam had no appetite. She made him drink something else earlier: a clear liquid that tasted sickly sweet and made him want to hurl. She told him it would help.

Doctor Scully sat in an armchair on the other side of the room. Beside her, Mulder was fiddling with the music centre. Dean was sitting on the floor beside the couch, as close as he could get to Sam without sharing the couch.

Sam handed the soup bowl to him. “I’m gonna drop it.”

Dean took it and set it on the floor beside him. He said something as he did so, but Sam found it impossible to concentrate on his words. That tune was still playing in his head, the same melody over and over and over. Sam couldn’t rest because the music never stopped. If he slept, the music invaded his dreams. It was making him crazy!

Gentle hands covered Sam’s, carefully drawing his hands away from his ears. It was Dean. Sam hadn’t seen Dean move. He hadn’t been aware of what he was doing.

“Sammy, stop,” Dean ordered.

Sam clasped his hands together in his lap. It was pointless to cover his ears. The music wasn’t in his ears. It was in his head.

“Sam, listen to this,” Mulder said.

Sam started to explain that he couldn’t listen to anything, but suddenly the music filled the room. It was the same music, the same haunting melody, but different somehow. Sam heard a flute and something like a guitar. There was even percussion. It had never been so real before. Without thinking, Sam covered his ears again, clutching the sides of his head in a futile effort to block the sound.

“No,” he moaned, squeezing his eyes shut. He shook his head, his fingernails digging into his temples. “No, no, no, no.”

It stopped.

Sam looked up, but didn’t lower his hands.

“Was that it?” Mulder asked him. “Was that your music?”

“Make it stop,” Sam begged. He knew how pathetic he sounded and he didn’t care. “Please make it stop.”

“I think that’s a yes,” Scully said.

 

*

 

“I have two theories,” Mulder announced, “and they aren’t mutually exclusive.”

Dean rolled his eyes, but he did understand what the phrase meant. “I’m listenin’.” He was holding both of Sam’s hands to stop him scratching his face again. Already there was blood on Sam’s cheeks.

“Just one question first. Where were you when Sam first got sick?”

“Wyoming,” Dean answered at once, then he reconsidered. “No, wait. It started in California. He had headaches. He started singing there, too.”

“California,” Mulder nodded with satisfaction.

Dean wanted to punch him. _Get to the point already!_

“Were you anywhere near Tule Lake?”

Dean almost let go of Sam’s hands. “Yes! How did you know?”

“You gave me two clues: the insanity at the house in Rodanthe that began a little over thirty years ago, and a piece of Japanese folk music. There was only one connection that made sense. A Colonel Hector Brand who took command of the Tule Lake internment camp in 1942. How’s your history?”

 _Lousy,_ Dean thought, but he reported what he remembered: “1942. Pearl Harbour. We were at war with Japan.” Though what that had to do with a lake in California, he had no clue.

Mulder nodded. “All along the Pacific coast of the USA, Japanese immigrants and Americans with Japanese ancestry were rounded up and sent to internment camps. Not our country’s finest hour.”

“Cut to the chase, Mulder.” Dean snapped impatiently. “What’s your theory?”

“You need to understand the history if you’re going to fight it, Dean. You see, the government was afraid of Japanese spies. People were interred without warning, taken from their homes to relocation camps and from there many were moved to camps in the midwestern states. But they weren’t told where they were going. When winter came, a lot of the internees died because they weren’t prepared for how cold it gets out there. The camps were...well, they were prison camps.”

“Concentration camps,” Sam said hoarsely.

Dean looked up, surprised Sam had heard enough to make a contribution. That was good, wasn’t it?

“A few were that bad,” Mulder agreed. “The Tule Lake internment camp housed the Japanese whom the government designated high risk. The ones they had real evidence against, though I can’t say how good the evidence really was. There were certainly genuine spies among them, but it’s very likely many of them were innocent. Loyal Americans, even, imprisoned just because their parents came from Japan.”

“And they died in camp?” Dean guessed. “Or, they were killed?” That was all it would take to create an angry spirit.

“Yes, people died in the camps. In the midwest mainly from the cold and winter flu. In Tule Lake...it’s hard to say. There was some violence.”

“You mean torture,” Dean guessed, thinking of Sam’s statement that they were concentration camps. Sam wasn’t usually wrong about these things.

“If there was torture, there’s no record of it. Harsh treatment and neglect, yes, and racism consistent with the times, but not the kind of mistreatment that was happening in Europe. As I was saying, Colonel Brand ran the camp from 1942 until it was closed at the end of the war. In 1960 he retired from army life and in 1966 he moved in with his married daughter and her family. They lived in the house in Rodanthe.”

Dean nodded, beginning to see the picture. “So the spirit is this Colonel?”

“No. It’s not a spirit, Dean. It’s a curse. That’s why your father needed help to finish it when you were in Rodanthe.” Mulder shook his head. “He called me just as I was leaving the island and asked me for help. He said his son was sick and that was more important than the hunt, but he didn’t feel right leaving it unfinished. Since I was there and he thought I owed him a favour, he passed the job to me.”

“Why’d you owe him a favour?”

“Long story. John asked me to make sure all the contents of the house were destroyed. I didn’t have to do much: the fire he set destroyed almost everything.”

“But if there was a cursed object in the house, and it was destroyed...”

“Why is Sam affected now?” Mulder asked. “As I said, I have two theories.”

“Tell me!”

“First, I don’t think Sam’s illness is part of the curse.” He looked at Scully. “Scully is a good doctor and she’s seen her share of the paranormal. Scully thinks this is simple flu, and I trust her judgement.”

“Sam was sick in Rodanthe,” Dean objected.

“Yes, and it saved his sanity. You took him away from the island and forced John to accelerate his plans and conclude his investigation quickly. Flu lowers the defences, Dean, both physical and mental. It may be that being ill made Sam more susceptible, but the others who were affected by the curse didn’t get sick like this. That’s just Sam.”

“Okay. So if you’re right, what does that mean?”

“It means Sam needs medical treatment, not some hunter solution.”

Oh. Right. Dean looked up at his brother. He’d been so sure this was supernatural...Sam might have _died_. He swallowed back his guilt. Time for that later.

Mulder went on. “Sam was touched by this curse when you were in Rodanthe ten years ago. I think that the curse originated in the Tule Lake camp. So even though the object carrying the curse is gone, when you both went there, the latent curse within Sam was reactivated. It recognised its origin.”

Dean nodded. It was weird, even for them, but it made sense.

“The victims of this curse react in different ways, but the music Sam is hearing makes sense of that. I think they were all hearing it. Some committed suicide to get away from the music. Some never did make it stop: they went crazy. Others reacted violently and killed others, maybe blaming them for the _orhwurm_ , or perhaps in the irrational belief that the act of murder would silence the music. In Sam’s case...well, he’s not there yet. This flu may be a blessing in disguise: it buys you time.”

“So, how do we break the curse?” Dean asked.

At that, Mulder shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not a hunter, Dean. I’ve given you all I can. The rest is up to you.”

 

*

 

It went against Dean’s instincts to accept that Sam’s flu was just that: plain, mundane influenza. Scully offered to run labs to prove it, but that would have taken too long. Once Sam accepted the theory, it didn’t really matter what Dean thought. Sick or not, Sam was a stubborn s.o.b. So Dean listened to Doctor Scully’s instructions on how to care for Sam. It boiled down to make sure he takes his meds, keep warm, drink lots of water and don’t be a moron. None of it sounded too complicated.

They stayed overnight at Scully’s insistence; she wouldn’t release “her patient” until morning. She offered Dean the guest bed; Sam was staying on the couch, mostly because he felt too weak to move. The medication was helping, but Sam wasn’t out of danger. It felt strange to sleep in a room without Sam in the next bed and Dean had a restless night. In the morning, the first thing he did was check on Sam.

Sam looked no better, but he smiled when he saw Dean. “You’re up early.”

“Yeah.” Wild hell hounds wouldn’t have dragged from Dean the admission that he couldn’t sleep without Sam in the room. “How are you feelin’?”

“A bit better.”

“What about the music?”

“Bad. It gets quiet sometimes, like now. When it’s loud I can’t hear anything else.” Sam nodded toward a chair. “Mulder left that for you. He must have been working most of the night.”

Dean saw a red cardboard document folder on the chair and picked it up. It was full of papers, untidily stacked, and a pink post-it stuck to the top page. The post-it read _Everything I could find about Japanese ghosts. See onryō. F.M._

Dean sighed. Research. He hated research. He sat down and began to read.

By the time Scully came in to check on Sam, Dean was halfway through the file.

Scully did all the things doctors usually do and sat down beside Sam and looked at him intently. “Your lungs are still congested, Sam. It’s not pneumonia, but it could be an early warning of it. You need to be very careful. If you have any trouble breathing, or that cough gets worse, check yourself into a hospital or _you could die_. Do you understand me?”

Sam nodded.

“I know you think this illness is some curse, but the existence of things we cannot scientifically explain does not invalidate science. You can’t cure this with a magic spell.”

Sam returned her gaze for a moment, studying her. “Doctor Scully, I know we come across as superstitious hicks, but we’re not. I went to Stanford. I get it.”

Dean was surprised. It wasn’t like Sam to boast about his education, but perhaps among these people it made sense. Scully was a doctor, Mulder just as highly educated. They might respect Sam’s credentials in a way their usual associates never would.

Scully put her equipment away. “I’ll hold you to that,” she said sternly. “Take care of yourself, Sam.” To Dean, she added, “If Mulder is willing, you can stay. Sam isn’t really fit to travel.”

“I know,” Dean admitted, “but we’ve got another problem and...” he indicated the file he held, “it looks like we can only take care of it back in California.”

Dean could see Scully wasn’t entirely disappointed. She picked up her bag. “I must go or I’ll be late. God be with you both.” She was gone before Dean could thank her.

 

*

 

 **California, 2007**

So, here was the deal.

Back in the 1940’s, someone interned at Tule Lake died believing that Colonel Brand did him a great injustice. It was probably true. The Japanese and Japanese Americans forced into the internment camps after Pearl Harbour were mostly innocent of any crime against the US. Many were loyal Americans, as outraged by the Japanese attack as their white neighbours. They were rounded up and imprisoned, their belongings stripped from them at five cents on the dollar, for the “crime” of having Japanese ancestry. However, a general injustice by the state would not have provoked the curse that this unknown inmate laid upon Colonel Brand. This was something more personal. Since the curse was originally tied to some object, it was perhaps something the Colonel stole.

The curse was never meant to be fatal: it was intended to make him suffer, or possibly to make it impossible for him to forget the one he wronged. The Colonel lived with the _ohrwurm_ until he died. Then, as happens with cursed objects, it moved on to the next person who owned or touched it. Either it gained strength over the years or the later victims were less able to withstand it, because the music literally drove them all crazy. They became violent, either killing themselves or trying to harm others.

The final victim of the curse was Sam, in 1997. Had Sam not become ill at the same time, the curse might have ended the same way for him. Instead, Sam’s illness prompted John to destroy the house and all its contents. Though he didn’t know it at the time, the fire destroyed the cursed object, and thus broke its power over Sam. But although Sam was freed from the _ohrwurm_ , the curse had not run its course. It was not gone, only dormant.

Fast-forward ten years and Sam and Dean stopped for a quiet beer on the shores of Tule Lake after a hunt. They must have been close enough to the site of the old internment camp for the spirit – whose human remains had to be buried there – to “recognise” Sam as someone he had cursed. This kicked the original curse back into full gear. By supernatural means or coincidence – Dean was unconvinced either way – Sam got sick again at the same time.

It was a good working theory, but it was a bit thin on actual evidence. There were a lot of problems with it, too. It got them no closer to identifying the spirit, and there had to be a lot of bodies buried at the camp. It wasn’t a death camp, like the Nazi concentration camps in Europe, but conditions had been harsh and medical help for the inmates minimal. Most of the deaths in the official record were listed as natural causes, but there were too many of them for “natural” to be strictly accurate. Something hinky could have been happening there.

Mulder’s research turned up several Japanese items Colonel Brand owned, including a kind of Japanese flute, but there was no way to trace the original owners. Nor was there any obvious suspect in what little of the camp’s records could be found online. And they couldn’t salt and burn an entire boneyard.

On the long drive back to California, Sam and Dean discussed several options. The journey took twice as long as usual, because Sam was sick. They made regular stops for food and drink. Dean wouldn’t let Sam eat in the car for fear he would throw up. They also stopped early each night, because Dean couldn’t trade off the driving with Sam.

An _onryō_ could be repelled or even destroyed by using an _ofuda_ which was some kind of sacred writing. But neither Sam nor Dean had any idea how to go about finding one.

It was just as they reached the California state line that Sam offered what had to be the craziest idea Dean had ever heard. Sam wanted to go to the camp and use a séance ritual he’d found to make the spirit manifest. So they could _talk to it!_

“It’s not that insane, Dean,” Sam began. He was recovering from his flu, but now he was talking loudly, as if Dean were hard of hearing. Or maybe as if he couldn’t hear his own voice.

“Yeah, it is! You want to summon a pissed-off, homicidal spirit that’s got you in its crosshairs and serve it tea and cookies!”

“According to the lore, you can lay an _onryō_ to rest by giving it what it wants. Don’t you think the best way to find out what it wants is to, you know, ask?”

“We know what it wants, Sam. It wants you dead or crazy!”

“No.” Sam shook his head, a little wildly. “I’d be dead by now. It wants something else.”

“Like what?”

Sam shrugged and turned the volume up on the Motorhead tape. They had discovered that if they played a tape loudly enough, it gave Sam some relief from the music in his head. In spite of his increasing worry for Sam, Dean was taking full advantage of his uncharacteristic enthusiasm for loud rock music, knowing that when this was over Sam would go right back to bitching about his tapes.

But damn if this wasn’t the most ridiculous, suicidal idea Sam ever had.

 

*

 

The Tule Lake internment camp had been preserved as a monument to what happened there. It was federal land, and neither of them wanted to risk being picked up by the feds. They settled for getting as close to the edges of the camp as they could. The spirit had tied itself to Sam; it should be enough.

Sam insisted on providing food for the ghost; it was a sign of respect and he hoped it would establish they weren’t too hostile. Dean thought the idea was nuts. But he located a Japanese-run food store and, feeling like a prize idiot, asked the proprietor what would be appropriate. He came away with powdered stuff that was supposed to be tea, rice and some weird pink balls that just had to be a practical joke. Joke or not, it would have to do.

They found a place near the camp where they wouldn’t be seen or disturbed. Dean insisted on shotguns for both of them. Sam laid out the food and some candles and began to read from the journal.

Dean wasn’t sure a Japanese ghost would respond to a Christian summoning ritual, but it was the only one they had. Sam read the words aloud but he sounded less confident than usual. Perhaps it was the aftermath of his illness.

A ghostly light began to form around Sam, as if his body was glowing white. Sam saw it, too. His eyes widened and he looked freaked, but though his voice faltered a little he didn’t quit reading. As he reached the end of the ritual, the light moved away from him. For a moment it looked like a cartoon ghost – a floating white sheet. Then it coalesced and the glow faded, leaving what appeared to be a solid figure in its place.

It was a woman! There had been no reason to assume the spirit was male, but Dean hadn’t considered anything else. She was dressed all in white, her gown a formal kimono with the sash tied at the back. Her sleeves were narrow at the shoulders and widened to a flare at the wrists, almost covering her hands. Her hands were strange. The fingers were unnaturally long and thin, the fingernails black and pointed. She had very long hair, but it hung around her face in thick ropes, as if it was wet. Her face was a perfect oval, her mouth a crimson rosebud.

She faced Sam and began to raise her arms, her weird hands hanging limp.

Dean raised his shotgun, taking aim.

Sam gestured, telling Dean to hold fire. To the spirit he said, “Wait. Please wait. I just want to talk.” He moved to stand beside the food they’d prepared.

The _onryō_ regarded the food haughtily, then turned her gaze upon Sam again. She cried out in Japanese. It sounded like a question, but Dean didn’t understand a word. How could they talk to it if they didn’t even have a common language? This plan was looking worse and worse.

“What are we gonna do if she can’t even speak American?” Dean asked. His finger tightened on the shotgun’s trigger.

But Sam made that ‘stop’ gesture again. “It’s okay, Dean. I understood her.”

 

*

 

Sam’s knowledge of Japanese extended no further than the names of various sushi dishes, but though the spirit wasn’t speaking in English somehow the meaning of her words was clear to him.

Sam was used to weird. Weird was his life.

They already knew the spirit was tethered to him in some way. How else had it followed him from California to the East Coast and back? But when it stepped out _from inside him_ , Sam still had a moment of freak-out.

As it began to solidify, the persistent music in Sam’s head faded to silence. It was such a blessed relief. He could hear again. He could _think_ again!

The spirit turned to attack. Sam expected that: spirits always did. He moved closer to the food offering they’d prepared. She did stop when he asked her to wait, and she acknowledged the offering. When she looked back at him, Sam saw something new in her deep-sunken eyes.

Her voice was strong and demanding. “You promised me my daughter! Where is my daughter!”

Sam understood the words, but the question made no sense. Neither did Dean’s question, because Sam had understood her perfectly. Not until Dean asked did Sam realise her words weren’t English.

Dean was on-edge already. He was about to fire, and if he did they would lose any chance of talking to the spirit. So, keeping his focus on the _onryō_ , Sam raised a hand to warn Dean to stay calm. “It’s okay, Dean. I understood her.”

“What? How?”

“I don’t know.” Sam addressed the spirit. “Who are you? Can you tell me your name?”

His words seemed to calm her. Perhaps all she needed was to be acknowledged. She gave a stiff little bow and answered, “Ishii Sumiko. I am the wife of Ishii Kamejiro. We are from Hiroshima.”

Sam flinched when she mentioned Hiroshima. He wondered if she’d died before the bombing. If not, he was screwed. She would have no reason to show mercy to an American if she knew what they’d done there

Sam struggled to remember the little he knew of Japanese culture and made his voice as respectful as he could. “Ishii-san, is it your music I hear?”

She smiled maliciously. “To remind you of your promise!”

“Ishii-san, I am Sam Winchester. I never made you any promise.” He was about to add that he wanted to help anyway, but she lunged at him. Her long fingers closed around his neck. Sam staggered backwards. Her cold touch cut off his air and his lungs weren’t in the best shape anyway. His foot caught on something and he pinwheeled for a few seconds before he fell.

“Sammy!” Dean yelled.

The spirit moved with him. Her hair fell around them in a thick curtain. Her eyes glowed white.

The blast of Dean’s shotgun shattered the quiet of the night and the _onryō_ was gone.

As the echoes of the shotgun died away, Sam’s head filled with music again.

“Well, that was a giant waste of time.” Dean offered his hand to Sam, who grasped it and let Dean haul him upright.

“It’s not a waste,” Sam told him, automatically covering his ears. “We know what she wants. I just hope we can give it to her.”

 

*

 

“Her daughter?” Dean repeated, shouting to be heard over the tape. It was Metallica this time.

Sam nodded, not trying to speak.

“Dude, she died in the 1940’s! If her daughter is still alive, she’s a grandmother by now.”

Sam tossed the file of Mulder’s research onto the bed between them. “We have her name now, and her husband’s name. We need to find out what happened to their family.”

“Why not just dig her up?” Dean suggested.

Sam wasn’t thinking straight. Of course, now they had her name, they could locate her grave. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. You see if you can find where she’s buried.”

Dean frowned. “What are you gonna do?”

“Call Ash for help. I’d search the records myself but I can’t concentrate worth a damn with this tune in my head!”

“Sam, settle down. We’ll beat the bitch.”

Sam wasn’t sure _bitch_ applied. Wrongfully imprisoned for the crime of being Japanese, losing her daughter (how? Did the army force families to split up?) and then dying in prison. Sumiko was entitled to be pissed off. But not at _him!_ None of Sam’s ancestors did this to her and he himself wasn’t even born when it happened.

He turned the radio off and dialled Harvelle’s Roadhouse.

It was a difficult conversation. Sam could barely hear Ash over the music in his head, and though he knew he was probably yelling he couldn’t seem to stop. He couldn’t judge the volume of his own voice lately. But Sam managed to get his need across to Ash...and also his urgency.

Ash extracted from Sam a promise of some time behind the wheel of “that bitchin’ car” if he could deliver before sundown the next day. Sam was careful not to include access to the keys in his promise. When he was done, he turned off his phone, cycled through the radio channels to find something more relaxing than classic rock and tried to get some sleep.

 

*

 

The old internment camp was well signposted for the tourists so Dean had no trouble finding it. The camp was surrounded by a high fence and Dean watched for a while to check out the security before he attempted entry. He saw no sign of surveillance cameras, only a guard on patrol. Once the guard had gone by on his rounds, Dean considered it safe to enter.

He found the cemetery behind one of the main buildings. It was a fenced-off area with neatly trimmed, green grass and rows and rows of stones. His heart sank. This wasn’t a boneyard. The stones might not mark bodies; it could be simply a memorial. If there were remains here, they had to be cremated remains, buried in their urns.

Even so, Dean searched for the stone that marked their onryō’s grave. But there was worse to come. Each stone marker had a name carved into it, but half of them were in Japanese script. Dean couldn’t read it.

What a stupid fucking waste of a trip! How were they going to save Sam now?


	4. Chapter 4

Even from outside the motel room, Dean could hear the music. Sam had found an opera on the radio and it was going full-blast.

The weirdness of that suddenly struck Dean. He hadn’t seen it before, because in the beginning they’d both believed this was a curse. But now they knew it was a spirit. So how in hell did it still affect Sam when he was in the motel room, protected behind their usual lines of salt?

When they summoned it, the spirit manifested out of Sam’s body. It wasn’t possessing him. Ghost possession was really rare and Dean was sure he would have noticed if his brother started behaving like a Japanese woman from the 1940’s. But it was riding him somehow.

Dad always said the salt-and-burn was the only way to be sure with ghosts. But it wasn’t the only way to deal with them. Sam’s plan to give the spirit what she wanted might be their best shot...if nothing horrible had happened to the daughter. But even if the woman was still alive, how were they supposed to bring her here? And how could Dean protect Sam in the meantime?

A ghost couldn’t cross a salt line, but if it was _inside_ Sam, would it have to? They laid down salt once they were inside the room, so...

Oh, shit. Instead of keeping it out, the salt trapped the spirit in the room. With Sam!

Dean pushed the door open and the sound hit him like a solid wall. A soprano was singing; it sounded like someone strangling a cat. He didn’t really expect Sam to be sleeping in that din, but Sam wasn’t even in bed. He was sitting in the corner of the room, his legs drawn up to his chest. He was shaking his head constantly, occasionally punctuating a shake by banging his head against the wall.

“Sammy!” Dean crossed the room swiftly and crouched beside him, pulling his brother into his arms. “Sam, stop it. Stay with me, dude.”

“Can’t...make it...stop,” Sam mumbled.

Dean saw the blood on Sam’s face and knew he’d been hurting himself again. “Did you call Ash?” he asked and hoped like hell that Sam’s nod meant yes, and wasn’t just Sam shaking his head again. Dean pulled out his cell phone and turned the radio off. For a second, he just savoured the blessed quiet. Then he pulled up the number for Harvelle’s Roadhouse. It was nearly three in the morning; he was going to wake Ellen. But looking at Sam, dishevelled and miserable, blood running down his face, he knew Ellen would forgive him.

Ellen answered on the second ring. “What?” she demanded. She didn’t sound sleepy. She sounded pissed.

“Wow. Something wrong, Ellen?”

There was a pause, then, “Oh. Dean. I was expecting someone else.” No apology, but Dean wouldn’t expect one from Ellen.

“That’s a relief,” Dean admitted. He wouldn’t like that tone directed at him. “Ellen, Sam called earlier to ask Ash to find some info for us. I really need it right now.”

“I’ll get him.” Ellen moved the phone away from her mouth and bellowed, “Ash! Get your butt out here!”

Moments later, Ash came on the line. “What’s up? Sam gave me twenty four hours.”

“We don’t have that long. Have you found _anything_ , Ash? It’s life or death.”

Ash grunted. “Well, I got something, but I don’t think it’s what Sam wants.”

“Shit. Hit me.”

“Kamejiro Ishii was a Japanese spy. He was making maps of the northern California coastline and imprisoned before he could pass them on. His wife went with him to Tule Lake, but their kid didn’t. She must have seen the cops coming and hid; they didn’t find her. Smart for a three year old.”

“What happened to her?”

“Another Japanese family took her in, and she went with them to a different camp. After the war...”

Dean interrupted. “I ain’t got time for her life story. Where is she _now_?”

“Dead. Cancer. 1979.”

Dean closed his eyes. At least she didn’t die in the camps. That was the worst case scenario. But this wasn’t much better. He took a breath to steady himself and grasped at the only straw he had left. “Ash, can you email me everything you’ve got? I’ll come up with something.”

“ _No problemo_.”

“Thanks. I owe you one.”

“Yes, you do.” Ash hung up the phone.

Dean pocketed his cell, went over to the laptop and turned it on. An idea was beginning to form in his mind, but it was a temporary fix at best, unless he could find something useful in Ash’s information. He opened his email and left it to download while he went to Sam’s side. Sam was still in the corner.

“Come on, Sam.” Dean bent down to help him up.

Sam allowed Dean to drag him to his feet. “I know why the people in Rodanthe went crazy,” he said, still shaking his head. His eyes were bloodshot. “I can’t take this any more, Dean. I’m about ready to put a gun to my head.”

Dean stiffened. “Dude, that is so not an option!” He shook Sam, hard. “Don’t you even think about that, you hear me?” He led Sam to the bed. Sam immediately reached for the radio, but Dean stopped him. “Hang in there, Sammy. I’ve got an idea. I just need Ash to come through.”

Sam shook his head. “What? What about Ash?”

He couldn’t hear. Dean pointed to the bed and said loudly, “Sit and wait. I’ve got a plan.”

Sam sat down obediently.

Dean returned to the laptop. There were six emails from Ash, each with several attachments. Dean scanned through them quickly, looking for anything about the daughter. He hit paydirt on the third email: the first two were camp records about Kamejiro and Sumiko Ishii.

Sakura Ishii was legally adopted in 1946 by the Japanese-American couple who had taken her in after her parents were arrested. In spite of the adoption, she kept her original name. She grew up in Seattle and there met the man she later married. Together, they ran a successful business: a small chain of clothing stores. They had four children before she was diagnosed with cancer in 1976. She died three years later, in 1979, 40 years old. There was a photo of her with her children. She looked happy.

Would that be enough? Dean fervently hoped so.

He could not wait any longer. Sam was right on the edge; Dean wasn’t going to wait for him to break. He would have to do this now. Here in the motel room.

There was no time to explain it to Sam. Sam could barely understand him now; discussion and debate was out of the question. Dean had everything he needed in the room. First, he loaded a shotgun with rock salt and left it on the bed where he could reach it easily. Next, he opened the journal to the right page. Then he deliberately broke the salt lines around the room and created a fresh salt circle in the clear space between the beds and the door. He directed Sam to stand within the circle.

Sam looked puzzled. “Dean, I don’t think that’s gonna – ”

“Trust me, Sam,” Dean insisted.

Sam still looked dubious, but he obeyed. Dean rolled his eyes. It would be nice if Sam has just a little bit more faith in him. But Dean said nothing; he just picked up the journal and began the summoning ritual again.

As before, an eerie white glow formed around Sam before it drifted away from him, as if it was a part of Sam detaching itself from his body. Before it could coalesce into the woman’s form, Dean grabbed Sam’s arm and pulled him out of the circle. Sam looked annoyed for an instant – idiot! - then he got it. He managed a half-smile before the _onryō_ started screaming.

The sound was horrible, a piercing wail of despair and frustration that went on and on. The _onryō_ moved around the salt circle, her strange hands pounding on thin air as if it were glass.

“You with me, Sam?” Dean yelled over the noise.

Sam was standing straight, smiling. “I’m good. But we still have to – ”

“Shut her the hell up?”

Sam stepped forward, placing himself very close to the salt line but not quite close enough to risk contact with the spirit. “Ishii-san!”

Her scream cut off abruptly. The sudden silence was almost painful.

“Good. Now we can talk,” Sam told her.

She replied in Japanese. It sounded like she was swearing, but of course, Dean couldn’t understand a word.

“Dean,” Sam said tensely, “did Ash find her kid?”

Dean carried the laptop over to the salt circle. The laptop was open, the screen filled with the photograph of Sakura Ishii taken in 1975, before the cancer took hold of her body. In the photograph she was smiling, a newborn baby in her arms and three other children surrounding her. The photograph had been taken on a sunny day in a green garden.

“This is Sakura Ishii,” Dean said to the _onryō_. “She was your daughter, wasn’t she?”

The pale spirit reached out toward the computer screen, but was stopped by the salt barrier. She didn’t answer Dean’s question – perhaps she hadn’t understood him – but her gesture was answer enough.

“She lived a happy life,” Dean said, hoping it was true. “She had many children, but she’s gone now. She’s waiting for you.”

The _onryō_ said something to Sam, her voice very soft and low.

Sam answered, “Yes. Beyond the rising sun.”

The _onryō_ raised her face and for a moment Dean thought he saw a glitter in her sunken eyes, almost like tears. The glow began in her face and flowed down her body as it intensified. For an instant, the sun itself was in their motel room. Then she was gone.

Sam sank to the floor. He looked absolutely exhausted.

Dean helped his brother to the bed. Sam fell asleep almost before he was lying down.

 

*

 

It was late morning when they finally left the motel. Sam strode ahead of Dean to the Impala and waited by the driver’s side door.

Dean raised an eyebrow at him. “Sure you’re up to driving, Sam?”

“I’m sure. The curse is gone and I had the best night’s sleep of my life. I’m fine.”

A little reluctantly, Dean handed over the keys. While Sam fired up the engine, Dean slipped a tape into the stereo and pushed the play button. Music blasted out! Dean turned the volume down before Sam could complain.

For a while, everything was good. Sam’s driving was smooth and steady. Dean saw no sign of the shakes or distraction. Satisfied Sam was okay, Dean leaned back in his seat and relaxed.

It wasn’t until they reached the highway that Dean realised Sam had a more nefarious purpose in mind, because that was when Sam leaned over and casually popped the AC/DC tape out. He tuned the radio to a station that made Dean want to barf.

“Jeez, Sam. Seriously?”

Sam gave him a narrow-eyed look. “You know what, Dean? I _know_ you were enjoying having this at full volume the last few days.”

Dean could not deny it. “That doesn’t mean I enjoyed you being sick!”

“Bite me. I’ve spent the past two weeks with some Japanese crap stuck in my head. Driver picks the music.”

By the time they reached Nebraska, Dean had planned a hundred different ways to hunt down Taylor Swift and salt and burn her bones.

 

 **~ End ~**


End file.
